BBC World does not plan to be content with a barrage of India specific programmes this summer, it would seem.

The channel has announced a range of fresh weekend programming, split into three seasons for the coming three months targeted at the avid traveller and aviation aficionado.

April on BBC will be heralded with Voyager, in which various intrepid travellers follow in the footsteps of famous men before them in the legendary journeys they undertook. Michael Palin will trace the road taken by Ernest Hemingway through many exotic locations the author visited and wrote about in his novels, in the first episode, to be aired at 2.40 pm, Saturdays. Among others, archeologist Michael Wood takes a unique expedition from Greece to India, tracking the Footsteps of Alexander the Great, in June.

Frontiers in Flight also takes off this April on BBC World, with a focus on the evolution of modern day aviation, renowned fighter pilots who served in the two World Wars and historic flights that changed the face of the field. The shows will air at 7:40 pm Saturdays with repeat telecasts on Sundays.

The Women at the Top season on the channel is being programmed to coincide with the 2002 Business Woman of the Year award in June and will train the spotlight on women who have advanced to the pinnacle in their chosen fields. It includes a three part series Boss Women featuring some of the best women achievers the world has seen in recent times, to air Saturdays 7:40 pm. This season will be complemented with women specific Hardtalk Specials and World Business Report which will highlight contributions from women in business.

For those with a yen for wheels, lifestyle programme Top Gear takes off this summer on the channel on Thursday evenings. The Car‘s the Star and Clarkson‘s Car Years are the episodes that target the car lover with a critique on the state of the global car industry as well as a look at modern models.

Among its other programming initiatives are The Future Just Happened, a four part series on how the Internet and the new economy are forming the backbone of a new social order that revolves around high technology. Designing Our Lives, another four part series this summer, takes a look at how people are being compelled to improve their tools and surroundings to fit changing needs and wants. The channel‘s flagship science documentary series, Horizon, continues with an in-depth look at the lost city of Atlantis, in mid-April.

Lagaan may have lost to No Man‘s Land at the 75th Academy Awards, but Star Movies certainly reaped the benefits of the frenzy that accompanied the nomination.

The nomination of an Indian film, a rare event in itself, ensured high ratings for the telecast of the Oscars ceremony, for which the channel secured telecast rights earlier this year. Average Indian viewers, who would normally not have bothered to tune in to the Oscars on a manic Monday morning, switched on with their own prayer while waiting for the Best Foreign Film category to be announced. Although the cameras did not train on the film‘s producer Aamir Khan (attired in an Anand Jon or a Shahab Durazi outfit, finally?) or director Ashutosh Gowariker, viewers got a glimpse of the latter when No Man‘s Land director Danis Tanovic got up to receive the award.

Khan was gracious enough to tell his team that Lagaan lost out to an equally good, if not better film.

So, even as India consoles itself with the fact that it could at least make it to the nomination stage, Star Movies is one beneficiary that raked in the rewards, with or without an Oscar for India. The ratings should tell.